


Forging a Family

by Englishtutor



Series: The Other Doctor Watson [10]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Breaking and Entering, Committing crimes together, Gen, Mary and Greg Friendship, Molly Hooper/Mary Morstan Friendship, Typical evening on Baker Street
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6309028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englishtutor/pseuds/Englishtutor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Mary Morstan draws her new friends together into a family:  a family that commits crime together, stays together.  Also featuring a typical evening at 221B Baker Street, including a warm fire on the hearth, experiments with hazardous chemicals, Chinese take-away, a mystery to solve, a great deal of tea, and a personal conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breaking and Entering

“That takes care of that!” Mary exclaimed triumphantly. “I am ready to get married.” She smiled at Molly across the desk in the Baker Street flat. “Thanks for coming over and helping me with this. It’s a simple wedding, and yet the details seem to overwhelm sometimes.”

Molly chuckled. “Well, if you two weren’t in such a rush, it might make things easier,” she teased. “You’ve been engaged less than five weeks!”

Mary’s dimples deepened. “When he asked me, he waited just long enough for me to say ‘yes’; then he said, ‘well, if we’re going to do it, let’s get it over! I’m not getting any younger.’”

“Does it really bother him, that he’s . . . a bit older?” Molly asked.

“Sometimes, a bit. I think he feels he has fewer years left and he doesn’t want to waste a moment of them. And it doesn’t help that Greg keeps calling him a cradle-robber.”

“Does it bother you?” Molly asked candidly. It used to embarrass her to ask Mary such personal questions, but no more. Mary was always quite forthcoming with her life.

Now her friend looked fondly across the room at her intended, who had dropped off to sleep, sprawled out in his armchair. He was recovering nicely from the knife wound he had received four weeks before, but he still tired quickly. The newspaper he’d been reading was now spread out on the floor at his feet, and his head had lolled back with his mouth hanging open, completely relaxed. “No, of course not,” she replied. “Just look at him. He’s perfect just the way he is.”

Molly giggled. “Not, perhaps, looking his best just now,” she suggested.

Mary agreed, chuckling. “But he’s alive. That’s all I care about at this point. Anyway, I’m glad the wedding is so close. He’s recovered well enough that the wedding is the only thing that’s stopping him from over-doing things. He’d be out there with Sherlock right now, running around and over-exerting, except for wanting to feel well for our honeymoon. And after a three-week cruise, he should be thoroughly rested up and ready for proper work when we get home.”

She leaned conspiratorially towards Molly and whispered, “I do have something I need to talk to you about. But let’s go down to Speedy’s, in case he wakes up. I don’t want him to hear.”

Intrigued, Molly followed her friend out of the flat. Mary had moved into 221B temporarily after John’s accident so that she and Sherlock could better care for him together as he recovered. Molly sometimes wondered if Mary appreciated how much she envied her.

“You get on so well with Sherlock, I wonder. . . I wonder that you don’t just move in with him and John here, instead of John moving to your flat,” Molly mused aloud as they found a table in Speedy’s.

Mary snorted with laughter. “Don’t get me wrong, dear. I am very grateful to Sherlock for all he’s done while John’s been ill. I certainly couldn’t have taken care of him alone, especially since I still had to go into the clinic for eight hours every day. He’s been wonderful. But honestly, he has no sense of personal space whatsoever! No idea of privacy or private property. He just sort of invades and takes over every part of our lives. And I know it’s his flat, but really, his clothing-optional attitude is rather alarming at times.” The young doctor grinned at Molly’s now over-heated face. “Sorry, dear. The point is, if John and I are to have any life to call our own at all, we need a separate space. In reality, we’ll probably not spend a lot of time there. John will be working with Sherlock full time now, and I’ll spend as much time as I can with them when I’m not at the clinic. Our flat will be more of a retreat than anything else, I imagine.”

“Is that why you said that most of John’s things will stay at Sherlock’s?” Molly wondered, toying with the menu.

“He doesn’t have much,” Mary explained. “And he’ll need most of his books and his tea things, and even changes of clothes to be handy here while he’s working. He’ll probably spend more time here than he did when he lived here, to be honest, because he won’t be doing shifts at the clinic at all anymore.” The girls ordered coffee and sandwiches, and then Mary changed the subject to her problem.

“We had an interesting case at the clinic last week: an entire family with a case of food poisoning. Both parents, two grown sons, and a daughter-in-law--the other son is unattached. We determined it to have been in some brie they had all eaten. But they came in immediately for treatment, and they were all recovering. And then, the daughter-in-law became ill again two days ago and died.”

Molly made sympathetic noises. As a pathologist, she was overly accustomed to death, but it never ceased to sadden her. She knew that Mary, too, had seen her share of tragedy, but the young doctor was still angered by senseless and preventable death. “Do they think something else in the house was contaminated?” she asked.

“That’s what they say. The rest of the family claimed to have still felt too ill to eat, but the daughter-in-law loved to cook and apparently prepared a meal for herself. But here’s the rub, Molly. I spent a lot of time with that family while they were being treated, and there was a lot of animosity towards this woman. Even her husband seemed to despise her. I thought at the time that they believed she was responsible for their illness, since she was the one who had prepared the meal using the suspect cheese. But now I wonder—could someone in the family have thought this might be an opportunity to get rid of an unwanted in-law? Or an unwanted wife? And once I starting questioning food poisoning, I started to realize the symptoms don’t really match exactly, either. It’s more like strychnine.”

Molly pondered this information for several minutes. Their luncheon arrived, and she thoughtfully bit into her sandwich. “Have you . . . have you mentioned this to anyone?” she asked at last.

“No. I don’t have any evidence whatsoever. It’s just a thought I had. But I can’t get it out of my mind, Molly! How can I get married in three days’ time and go off on my honeymoon without knowing? It will drive me mad, wondering if someone is getting away with murder. And the longer I wait to do something about it, the more time the family has to get rid of any evidence there might be in that house. I know that today they are all surrounded by extended family and friends, so they will have little opportunity to do anything sneaky. And tomorrow is the funeral. But after that—well, they could do anything they like, couldn’t they?”

“Can’t you tell Sherlock?” Molly suggested. “He’d love a good puzzle to solve.”

“He’s helping Greg with that embezzlement case. I’m so glad it’s a quiet one that he can do by himself, so that John isn’t tempted to get involved! That’s the problem, though, Molly. If I get Sherlock involved in this murder case, I won’t be able to keep John out of it. He thinks he’s ready to get back into the game, but I know he needs more rest, and he doesn’t need the stress of a case right now. That’s why I need your help. If we can find enough evidence to convince to Greg to even just open an investigation, I’ll feel satisfied that at least I did what I could, however the case turns out.”

Molly felt a sense of doom envelope her. She was not sure she wanted to know what it was that Mary had in mind. She thought it might be expedient for her to get up and leave before she heard any more. But somehow, she just couldn’t make herself move from her chair. Mary’s eager, earnest face held her in place. “What do you want to do?” she asked cautiously, against her better judgement.

“Like I said—they’ll all be at the funeral tomorrow. They’ll be gone most all day,” Mary said suggestively. “So, I had a thought: we could do a little breaking and entering.”

Molly’s eyes grew huge. She leaned forward across the table and hissed, “Don’t say that so loud! Mary . . . . Are you mad? We can’t . . . .”

“Yes, we can. I was there before, with their permission, looking for the source of the original contaminate. Listen, I just need you to be the look-out. I’ll do all the sneaking. And if we do get caught, Greg can pull strings for us. Or if he can’t, Mycroft can,” Mary assured her.

Molly was aghast. “Mary—you don’t . . . don’t really think you can just . . . just do whatever you like just because you have . . . important friends?”

Mary looked affronted. “Of course not, Molly. But I do think that I can do what I believe is right and expect my friends to back me up.”

Molly looked at her friend and sighed, feeling like a mouse in a maze.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

She sat at the bus shelter, down the block and across the way from the house in question, and felt nauseated with panic. She had absolutely no memory of how she had come to be there. She concentrated on breathing and considered every moment of not being sick a minor triumph. Beside her, Mary was the image of casual innocence, swinging her feet and looking a bit like a child, enveloped in John’s coat. Molly wondered how she managed to stay so collected.

“Mary, if you’re right . . . if these people are murderers . . . if they catch us in there . . . won’t they kill us, as well? I mean, I . . . I would kill us, if . . . if I were a murderer about to be caught out,” she stammered.

“Don’t worry, dear,” Mary assured her coolly. “Why do you think I’m wearing John’s coat? He bought this with intent, you know. The pockets are perfect for caring things in. Protective things.”

Molly’s throat constricted and she could barely breathe enough to squeak out, “You have John’s . . . .” She could not make her lips form the word “gun”.

Mary grinned ingenuously. “It’s all right. He’s taught me all about use and safety. He says I’m rather a natural at it.”

Molly hoped she would not pass out. Across the street, a rental car pulled up and a driver approached the rather nice semi-detached that was apparently filled to brim with plotting assassins. The St. John’s Wood area had never seemed so sinister before. Soon, she would have to get herself off the bus stop seat and break into that lovely home. She felt quite dizzy.

“Mary, how . . . how do we get in?” she murmured to her companion.

“We’ll sneak round to the back garden and you’ll shield me from view while I pick the lock to the back door,” Mary whispered confidently. 

There were so many things to be alarmed about in that sentence that Molly hardly knew where to begin. She chose one and stuttered, “Mary, why. . . . why do you know how . . . how to pick locks?”

Mary had the grace to look abashed, an expression rarely seen on her face. “Misspent youth,” she admitted sheepishly. “I was a bit of a rascal as a child.”

“That isn’t your fault,” Molly stated loyally. “No parents to teach you right and wrong and all.”

“That’s just what I kept telling myself. And the school officials.” The young doctor’s face brightened. “It’ll be easier for us now,” she informed her friend in a conspiratorial murmur. “Look!” She reached into one of the coat’s capacious pockets, and for a brief moment Molly was terrified she would produce John’s . . . unmentionable. Instead, Mary pulled out a leather wallet and opened it to display a shining collection of lock picks. 

“Mary,” Molly intoned, so far beyond anxious that she now felt almost preternaturally calm. “Why do you own lock picks?”

“I don’t,” Mary twinkled mischievously. “They’re Sherlock’s.”

“And he just handed them over to you, no questions asked?” Molly did not believe it.

Mary chuckled. “I pick his pockets when he’s annoying,” she explained candidly.

Molly hardly knew whether to feel more alarmed by Mary’s audacity, impressed by her prowess, or envious of her frequent and casual proximity to Sherlock’s person. Before she could react, the family they were spying on emerged from their house, dressed in their funereal best, entered the hired car, and drove away. 

Molly tensed herself to rise, but Mary put a warning hand on her thigh. “Wait,” she muttered. “In case they come back for a forgotten whatever.”

A thought struck Molly suddenly. “And you complained that Sherlock has no sense of personal space?” she exclaimed in a whisper. “That’s a bit pot and kettle of you, isn’t it?”

Mary snickered. “Whom do you think taught me how to pick pockets?” she asked cheerfully.

Molly had often thought of life at 221B Baker Street as rather idyllic: evenings round the fireplace, sipping tea and reading; or sitting round the kitchen table, happily engaged in fascinating experiments. Now this vision vanished, replaced by a picture of a rather chaotic and Faginesque den of instruction for criminal activities: John as weapons instructor, Mary as professor of breaking and entering, and Sherlock as dean of thievery. Molly sighed. 

Then the street was clear, and they boldly walked around into the back garden of the house in question. Donning surgical gloves, Mary picked the lock with alarming ease. “You go through to the front and keep watch. I’ll get samples of everything I can find in the kitchen. All the food in the refrigerator was thrown out at once, of course, the first time they were ill. But there must be plenty of other sources that could have been tainted.” She had a pocketful of evidence bags and set to work immediately. Molly, her own gloves in place, went to the front room and placed herself by the window that gave her the best view of the street. Time stretched on interminably, or, at least, it seemed to. In fact, it had been only a few minutes before Mary suddenly appeared at her side.

“I had a thought,” the young doctor began.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Molly objected.

“Wouldn’t what?”

“Have thoughts,” Molly sighed. “That’s what got us into this in the first place.”

Mary chortled unrepentantly. “I know! It’s like a disease. Once you start, you can’t stop! But listen, Molly, you know more about this than I do. We only think the poison was in the food because it was the first time. What if it wasn’t? What else could it be?”

“It would have to be ingested or injected,” Molly mused. “Food would be the easiest. But also the most obvious. And the most dangerous, in case someone else should eat it by mistake.” She pondered on the problem a bit. “Oh! Mary! I caught your disease!”

“What? What have you thought of?”

“Eye drops. What if the victim used eye drops? No one else would want to use the same bottle. There would be no danger of accidents at all.”

 

Mary was off like a shot, searching the bathrooms and bedrooms for bottles of eye drops. Then Molly saw a man approaching the house. “Mary!” Molly hissed anxiously. “Hurry!” She herself lost no time heading towards the back door. Mary met her there, and they slipped back out into the garden, locking the door behind them. 

As it turned out, it was only the post arriving. They waited until the postman had made his agonizingly slow way down the street, and then strolled casually back to the bus stop.

They took the bus to St. Bart’s, and Molly set to work analysing the samples. Mary might have all the expertise in breaking and entering and stealing, but Molly could run tests more quickly than just about anyone. She began with the eye drop sample.

Mary’s phone signalled a text. Amused, she read her exchange with John aloud to entertain Molly.

 

What are you up to? JW

What do you mean? MM

My you-know-what has gone missing. JW

Has it? Oh, dear. That’s a bit not good. MM

So have Sherlock’s lock picks. JW

That doesn’t bode well, does it? MM

So, what are you up to, then? JW

Molly and I have been sleuthing. We’re having a lovely time. MM

Oh, well, if that’s all. Just wanted to make sure we weren’t robbed. When are you coming home? JW

Mary looked to Molly. “I’m finished,” Molly said. “And we were right. The eye drops are full of strychnine.”

We’re just finishing up. I’m bringing Molly home for supper. MM

Good idea. We’ll get Chinese take-away. JW

“Assuming you want to come over,” Mary added to her friend, and Molly nodded, pleased. Mary then called D.I. Lestrade.

“Greg, this is Mary. I’m calling to give you an anonymous tip,” she said, grinning at Molly.

“Well, you’re not very good at it, then, because I’ve already guessed who you are,” Lestrade responded dryly. “Next time, don’t tell me your name or use your own phone.”

“No, no,” Mary laughed, “This isn’t from me. I’m being the go-between.” She quickly gave him the name and address of the family and the details of what she suspected had happened.

“And this has nothing to do with you whatever,” Lestrade wanted to verify. “You’re just a messenger?”

“Greg! I’m getting married day after tomorrow. Do you really believe I have the time to go crime-solving at a time like this?” Mary demanded, struggling not to chuckle. Molly snorted with laughter at her friend’s expression.

“Actually, I do believe it. But since you say this is an anonymous tip, who am I to undeceive myself? As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been doing wedding things all day,” Lestrade replied. “I’ll check into it and let you know.”

Molly and Mary grinned at each other. “Job well done,” Mary said cheerfully.

“We didn’t get killed!” Molly exalted. “Or caught!” She followed her friend out of the lab. Her idyllic vision of 221B Baker Street had returned, and she looked forward to finding out for herself what an evening at home with her friends could be.


	2. Typical Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes spend an enjoyable evening on Baker Street, having dinner, solving crimes, and bonding.

She followed her friend with much trepidation, unsure of her welcome here. She was with Mary, but this was, after all, not Mary’s flat. It was Sherlock’s. The fact that Mary was staying here temporarily did not automatically give her the right to bring just anyone into Sherlock’s realm, did it?

“Hullo, Sweetheart,” Mary greeted the back of a curly head bowed over a microscope at the kitchen table. A grunt barely acknowledged her entrance. “I’ve brought Molly home to dinner,” she continued, unfazed.

“Hello, Molly,” he intoned without looking up, and Molly felt flattered that he had actually spoken to her rather than grunting again. Then he held out an expectant hand. “Mary, I’ll have my lock picks back now.”

Mary dimpled. “Will you?” she chirped cheekily.

Now Sherlock looked up from his work, his face stormy. “You stole them,” he accused crossly.

“And you told me I should practice my pick-pocketing,” Mary reminded him unrepentantly.

“I didn’t mean for you to pick-pocket ME,” Sherlock complained, but without heat, as he turned back to his slides. “I meant for you to pick-pocket Lestrade. I was on a case today. What if I’d needed those?”

Mary snorted unsympathetically. “You were on an embezzlement case. I, on the other hand, was house-breaking. So who needed the lock picks more, I ask you?”

Sherlock now turned his entire attention upon her, his face changing from annoyance to delight in an instant. “Were you, now? And I understand you also stole John’s handgun this morning. Turning to a life of crime, are you?”

“In two days’ time, John’s endowing me with all his worldly goods. I just sort of. . . . “

“Jumped the gun?” Molly suggested, feeling unexpectedly impish. The girls giggled together, while Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“Molly and I did a bit of sleuthing today,” Mary informed Sherlock when she had caught her breath. “I suspected one of my patients had been poisoned, but I had no proof. We had to break into her house to find some evidence. Then Molly came up with the idea of strychnine in eye drops, and there it was! Greg’s looking into it as we speak.”

Sherlock looked at Molly as if truly noticing her presence in the room for the first time. “Creative deduction, Molly,” he approved, filling Molly with warmth. “You two show some promise, for amateurs.” Then he added, with his hand out again, “I’ll still have my lock picks back, Mary.”

Smiling, she dropped the leather wallet holding the lock picks into his hand. “They work like a dream,” she noted. “I knew you wouldn’t mind my borrowing them for a worthy cause.” He chose to ignore her impudence, turning back to his microscope.

Mary smirked at him, then turned to Molly. “I’m running John’s you-know-what upstairs to put it away. I’ll be right back.” Before Molly could object, her friend had trotted up the stairs to John bedroom, leaving her alone with Sherlock.

Molly sighed nervously, wishing she could be more like Mary. Mary wasn’t nervous around Sherlock at all. Oddly, Mary talked to Sherlock as if he were just anybody. Unlike most people, John’s fiancée was not intimidated by the detective at all. His superior intellect and penetrating gaze did not overawe her. Most of the time, she looked as if she were laughing at him; not in a cruel way, but the way one laughs fondly at a toddler who is trying something new and muffing the job.

“What. . . . what are you working on?” Molly stuttered, trying to start conversation.

“A case,” Sherlock muttered impatiently.

Molly knew that at this point Mary would scold Sherlock for being rude. But Molly could not bring herself to scold. She looked at the floor, flushed and disconcerted. “Can I . . . help?” she asked at last, expecting him to reply that she could help best by shutting up. Instead, he looked at her curiously and said, “You could prepare the next slide if you like.”

He explained briefly what he was doing, and by the time the now unarmed Mary skipped back downstairs, the two of them were absorbed in the work. Molly looked up and smiled gratefully at her friend, who winked at her and grinned broadly.

Mary started a fire in the fireplace, then put the kettle on and brewed a pot of tea. And Molly was in heaven. Evening in the Baker Street flat was just as she had always imagined: cosy and warm and interesting.

The street door opened and slammed shut, and John’s voice carried up the stairs. “Mrs. Hudson! I’ve bought food enough for an army. Come upstairs and eat with us!”

“My sweet boy! You’re so thoughtful,” was Mrs. Hudson’s muffled reply through her door. “I’ll be up in a moment, dear.” John trudged up the steps, the scent of various Chinese dishes wafting before him. 

Molly noted that Mary did not even attempt to clear a space on the kitchen table, but just picked up the few items that cluttered the coffee table and set them aside on the floor so that John could put his many fragrant packages upon it. Once his arms were empty, Mary exuberantly filled them again with herself. 

“You’re looking so much better, Captain,” she noted happily. “Fresh air did you good, did it?”

“And having a bit of exercise,” he agreed. “I’ve had my fill of rest, I believe. How was your day?”

“Mary and Molly have been committing crimes together all day,” Sherlock noted dryly. 

“Well, as long as it keeps them out of trouble,” John smiled. “Some women spend their days off running up debt on their credit cards or spreading gossip about the neighbours.”

Mary began pulling plates and cups and saucers out of the kitchen cupboards and piling them on the coffee table as she explained in some detail how she and Molly had conducted their private investigation that day. Then Mrs. Hudson appeared and she and John unpacked the food from the bags and stuck serving spoons into the cartons. 

Mary carried the tea tray into the lounge and set in on the desk. “Come on, you two, stop slaving over the slides and be sociable,” she called. It took Molly a second to realize that she was one of the ‘you two’ Mary was talking about. Again she felt that warmth spread over her; Mary had paired her with Sherlock, as if they were . . . a pair. Molly rose and moved onto the sofa beside Mrs. Hudson. John was in his accustomed armchair, poking at the fire. She felt as if she were in a dream, sitting in Sherlock’s flat having dinner just like a normal person dining with family. Well, perhaps not quite normal: a skull grinned down at her from the mantelpiece, beside a knife that skewered a pile of bills; books were stacked precariously on nearly every flat surface; a mannequin was hanging from the ceiling by a noose; and of course, the kitchen table was covered with toxic chemicals in vials and microscope slides. Still, it felt quite homelike to Molly. 

“Come along, Sweetheart,” Mary insisted, walking over to where Sherlock remained stubbornly gazing into his microscope. “You need to eat a proper meal.”

“I’m not hungry,” Sherlock informed her firmly.

“I’m not at all surprised,” Mary replied pleasantly, “after that stunt you pulled yesterday. I imagine you have a bit of a tummy-ache, don’t you?” She turned to Molly and explained, “Mrs. Hudson and I made my wedding cake yesterday evening. I mixed up a lovely buttercream icing, then went downstairs to get the layers out of Mrs. Hudson’s oven. By the time I came back up, half the icing was gone!”

“You exaggerate,” Sherlock objected, and Mary sniggered. 

“He tried to tell me it wasn’t him that ate it, all the while smelling quite suspiciously of buttercream,” she chortled fondly. She patted Sherlock’s head and coaxed, “Come on, now, Sweetheart, you need some real food today to offset all that sugar.” Grumbling, Sherlock left the table and threw himself into his armchair.

Molly was quite taken aback. Not only had someone dared to pat Sherlock Holmes on the head and call him by an endearing pet name, and he endured it; he had done as he was told, albeit reluctantly. Molly began to wonder if Mary were a witch or a fairy of some kind.

Mary poured out the tea and Mrs. Hudson filled plates as John regaled them with an amusing story about a patient he had once treated who was certain her husband was poisoning her, but as it turned out she was just allergic to strawberries. He told it so well that he soon had the women purple with laughter, and Sherlock rolled his eyes impatiently and suggested that the husband had known of the allergy and had been feeding her strawberries on purpose. 

“Quite possibly,” John said agreeably. “To be honest, the woman was such a harridan, I would have been sorely tempted to poison her myself.”

As he was talking there had been a knock on the street door, and Lestrade, file folder in hand, let himself in and was coming up the stairs just as John finished speaking. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner,” he began as he came into the room.

“Pull up a chair, Greg, and join us,” John offered. “There’s plenty.”

“I’ll get you a plate,” Mary told him, bustling back into the kitchen.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Lestrade seated himself at the desk after greeting all present. “Mary, your anonymous tipster knew what’s what, all right. I only just mentioned eye drops, and the mother-in-law spilled the beans almost immediately. Although, from what the family all said, I almost couldn’t blame her for doing away with the victim. What was that word I heard you use as I came in, John? Harridan? That describes her exactly, from what they tell me.” He accepted his filled plate from Mrs. Hudson with a polite thank-you.

Mary looked at Molly with a seriously. “Perhaps we should have left things well-enough alone,” she suggested.

Lestrade looked from one young woman to the other. “Molly, do I have the honour of addressing ‘Ms. Anonymous’?” he asked with amusement, and she coloured with embarrassment.

“Not that I know what you’re talking about, but if I did, It would certainly have been Mary’s idea to investigate, not mine,” she demurred. 

“If I knew what he was talking about, it might have been my patient and my suspicions, but it would have been your deductive reasoning that showed us the answer,” Mary said firmly. “If, in fact, we knew anything about this case at all.”

“And I don’t even want to know how you might have confirmed your suspicions, if, in fact, you had been involved; and fortunately, I have no proof that you were,” Lestrade said hastily with upraised hands. “I didn’t notice any obvious signs of a break-in, mind you, so I have no reason to believe anyone did anything illegal today. But there were two unsavory-looking characters reported hanging around the bus stop in the St. John’s Wood area today.”

Mary snorted with laughter. “That’s funny. We were in that area for quite some time today, and I didn’t notice any unsavoury characters about.”

Lestrade smiled at her fondly. “Well, good. I’m glad to hear it,” he chuckled. “We’ll just have to be thankful for anonymous, civic-minded do-gooders.”

As they were speaking, Sherlock had been looking through the file Lestrade had brought. Now he spoke up. “It wasn’t the mother-in-law. It was the husband,” he announced.

Lestrade looked at him, all seriousness now. “Are you sure? How do you know?”

Sherlock pointed out several discrepancies in the woman’s confession, and Lestrade nodded. “You’re probably right. She’s covering up for her son. I’ll get my team on it tomorrow. Thanks.”

“You might have them look into a rash of petty theft that has been occurring in Baker Street lately,” John suggested seriously. “Oddly, it started about the time Mary moved in.”

“Don’t even bother,” Sherlock said observed wryly. “Lestrade would look the other way if Mary were discovered to be the next Jack the Ripper.”

“That’s Jill the Ripper to you, Sweetheart,” Mary twinkled at him.

It was a typical evening at 221B Baker Street. Chinese food was consumed. Experiments were performed. A crime was solved. 

Molly was indescribably happy to be included in it all.


	3. By Any Other Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which remarkable parallels are revealed and family bonds are further strengthened.

He made himself comfortable in Sherlock’s armchair before the fire in the Baker Street flat, feeling more at home here than he had in any place for some time. Greg Lestrade had given up his house to his ex-wife when she’d divorced him, and the little bed-sit he’d lived in since was never home. Of course, Baker Street had never seemed like home before, either—more like a Little Shoppe of Horrors—until Mary Morstan had moved in to care for the recovering John. Now it seemed cosy and warm and good to sit here, listening to Sherlock and Molly murmuring over mysterious experiments on the kitchen table and Mrs. Hudson and Mary rattling dishes as they cleaned up after dinner. John, having just taken his evening pain reliever, dozed peacefully in his own armchair across from Greg with a softly whiffling snore.

When Mary had called him that afternoon with an “anonymous tip” concerning a murder, Greg had not questioned it but investigated immediately. It seemed that Mary and Molly’s house-breaking exploits that day had unearthed a nearly perfect crime, one the police had utterly overlooked. Greg had not been able to wait to congratulate the young women, arriving just as the little Baker Street family were starting dinner. He’d been warmly welcomed and invited to stay. And now dinner was over, and he was left sitting by the fire while the others went about their business, pleasantly ignored as if he belonged there as a part of the family rather than a guest that needed entertaining. He knew this was due to Mary’s open and affectionate nature. He and Sherlock had been colleagues for years, and he and John had become close mates; but Mary pulled them together into a family of sorts, and had done it in an amazingly short period of time.

It had been less than a year ago that he had first met Mary at a crime scene. Sherlock and John were investigating the mystery surrounding her father, who had disappeared ten years earlier; Scotland Yard had been called in as evidence developed that the man had been murdered. Mary had impressed Greg with her cheerful warmth and irrepressible courage during the investigation; but while filling in the official reports, he discovered something that drew him to her even more. Mary had been born on the same day as his Rose. Not just the same date; the same, exact day as his own daughter, twenty-six years before.

His little Rose, with her shining blond hair and mischievous blue eyes, with her indomitable, adventuresome, and utterly fearless spirit, seemed to come alive again in Mary Morstan. Greg had no doubt in his mind that, had Rose lived, she would be just the sort of young woman that Mary was. Sometimes that certain knowledge brought back the pain of loss in a fresh flood of grief that felt akin to drowning. But more often, it filled him with an inexplicable joy, as if he were privileged now to see what could have been, had life been kinder.

As he learned more of Mary’s life, the contrasting parallels continued to confound him. While his little four-year-old Rose was going through the terrifying series of tests to help the doctors learn why she was in so much pain, little Mary was experiencing the painful loss of her mother. While Greg took an extended leave of absence in order to spend every possible moment with his little girl, Mary’s father withdrew his affections and pushed his daughter away. Even as Greg, against the doctors’ advice and even his own wife’s wishes, refused to put Rose into hospice but spent a fortune in medical devices and in-home care in order to keep his baby close to him, taking on much of her care himself; Mary’s father was making plans to send his baby girl half-way across the globe into the dubious care of strangers. Six-year-old Rose had died in her father’s trembling arms, safe and loved and wanted and cared for; that same day, Mary’s father had put her, alone, on a plane to England, never to see his little girl again. Greg could not comprehend the man. How could Matthew Morstan have sent his only child away so deliberately, when Greg Lestrade would have fought off legions with his bare hands to keep his precious girl close to his side? “Rosemary”, he always thought of her, in the privacy of his own mind. “That’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.”*

Now Mary stepped lightly into the sitting room, tray in hand, and served Greg tea and biscuits with a warm, cheerful expression. She gestured towards her fiancé with a wink. “Not much company tonight, is he?”

“It’s companionable enough, just sitting here,” Greg confessed, looking self-consciously into the fire.

Mary settled onto the rug between the armchairs, her own cup in hand. “Tuppence for your thoughts,” she smiled.

He looked at her sombrely, wondering if it were permissible to be open with this young woman. “My daughter Rose would be just your age. You and she share a birthday.”

Mary looked at him compassionately. “What happened to her?” she asked softly.

“Cancer. Inoperable brain tumour,” he said abruptly. He didn’t like thinking about his Rose that way. He liked remembering her as she was before she was ill—energetic, full of mischief, exuberantly alive. “She died when she was six.”

He could see that Mary could read between the lines and see all the grief and loss behind his simple statement. She put a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. I know what it’s like to lose ones we love, but the loss of a child must be the worst of all.”

A companionable silence fell between them. Then, for the first time in twenty years, Greg felt able to talk about his daughter. He and his ex—well, that was one of the things that had made his marriage fall apart, wasn’t it? They just couldn’t talk about Rose. It was as if she’d never existed for them. But he found himself able to pour out his grief to Mary, who also knew sorrow as a lifetime companion and understood his loss. And then, to his relief, he was able to share with her some of the joyous memories of his little girl—things he’d never spoken of for so very, very long.

“I imagine Rose and I would have been great chums,” Mary smiled as he told of some of his daughter’s wilder exploits, before she’d become too ill to have adventures. “I wish I could have known her. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could have grown up together?”

Greg nodded. He wished this, too. Then shyly, he added, “I wish we’d known you then. Maybe we could have looked after you, when you came to England alone.”

Mary looked wistful. “You’d have made a much better father than mine ever did,” she agreed. “I wonder what I might be like now, if you’d been my father instead of him.”

John chose this moment to rouse himself from his drugged state. “Who’s whose father?” he muttered in confusion.

Mary chuckled. “Fancy this, Captain. Greg’s daughter Rose and I share a birthday. I was wondering what it would have been like had we changed places.”

“You’d certainly have been better off. Matthew Morstan was a bloody monster!” John declared darkly. 

Mary leaned against John’s knee. “I’ve sometimes wondered what it might have been like to grow up in a stable, loving family.” She looked up at her fiancé fondly. “Would you still want to marry me if I were called Rose Lestrade?”

“That which we call a Rose, by any other name would smell as sweet,”* John smiled gently. Greg was gratified that he was not the only man who quoted Shakespeare when delving into sentiment. However, the allotted time for sentiment was now long over. What he needed to know now was how John would react to his friend harbouring paternal feelings towards his intended, and then he must really stop wallowing in the past.

“John Watson, what on earth makes you think I’d let any daughter of mine anywhere near an old rogue like you?” he said dryly, and looked his friend in the eye with amusement.

John chuckled. “You’d be grossly negligent if you did,” he admitted cheerfully. “I supposed I’d just have to work round you.”

“I would have to rebel,” Mary sighed dramatically, falling into the spirit of deliberate levity. “We would be forced to elope; but then you’d eventually come round to accepting the inevitable. And we’d all live happily ever after.”

“Elopement would be an unnecessary deception,” Sherlock put in, never looking up from his microscope, “as it is obvious that Lestrade would give in to whatever Mary wanted with little hesitation.”

Greg was momentarily startled. He’d somehow forgotten as he had talked with Mary that there were others in the flat. Now he had to decide whether he minded that the others all knew his most personal business.

And he found he really didn’t mind. After all, isn’t sharing what families are for?

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*Greg is quoting from “Hamlet”—from Ophelia’s speech mourning her father’s death—a bit of turn-about.

*John is quoting from “Romeo and Juliet”—from Juliet’s speech as she tries to persuade Romeo to leave his family for her sake.


End file.
